Those conservatives who were targeted for abuse by the Obama-era IRS will notice a depressing similarity between their ordeal and the much greater and more frightening abuse perpetrated by the Obama-era FBI and Department of Justice against President Trump and individuals associated with his campaign.

Let’s review the outlines of the conspiracy as detailed in the memo[34] compiled and recently released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

The Steele dossier or so-called “dirty dossier” formed an essential part of an initial FISA application targeting one-time Trump campaign small-fry Carter Page.

Former FBI Deputy Director McCabe confirmed that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) without the Steele dossier information. Using the Steele dossier, the FBI and DOJ obtained from the FISC an initial warrant, and three FISA renewals.

According to the memo[34] released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, here are the players involved in obtaining the surveillance warrants based on the spurious Steele dossier:

Then-FBI Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.

Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary for America (Clinton campaign) for his dossier. All of the players knew of the tainted provenance of the Steele dossier. However, neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. In September 2016, Steele (a British national, not an American citizen) told Ohr, he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” Ohr later relayed this evidence of Steele’s bias to FBI, where it was recorded in official files, but not included in any of the FISA applications. None of the FISA applications mention that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the dossier information.

Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS.

While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, all the signers of the applications ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations.

According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial FISA application targeting Carter Page. In early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, a document he later described as “salacious and unverified.”

The Carter Page FISA application also incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.

The Nunes memo reveals with great clarity the circular nature of the justification the FBI and Department of Justice used to spy on President Trump and his associates: Take an unverified partisan hit piece compiled with the complicity of Department insiders, share it with the media and intelligence agencies, then use the unverified document and resulting media as a justification for further surveillance.

In the IRS targeting case, there was a well-planned politically motivated government conspiracy to deprive the targets of their rights and constitutional protections. When the plan was uncovered there were denials, destruction of evidence, stonewalling and orchestrated media attacks against the victims. Finally, when the evidence of government wrongdoing became incontrovertible the perpetrators, such as IRS official Lois Lerner, were allowed to retire with full benefits or moved on to lucrative careers in the private sector. None of the miscreants faced justice or even acknowledged their wrongdoing.

Even though he clearly violated FBI and Department of Justice procedures[35] in signing at least three FISA warrant applications, fired FBI Director and potential perjurer James Comey is being made into a hero by the Left and to the astonishment of many who have followed this case, he has been hired to teach a course on ethics at Virginia’s prestigious College of William and Mary.

Politically tainted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has announced his retirement and is now on a taxpayer-funded two-month vacation before leaving government employment with full benefits, he likewise clearly violated what are known as the “Woods Procedures[35]” to ensure that information used to justify spying on Americans is thoroughly vetted.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who later served as Acting Attorney General until she was fired for insubordination over the Trump immigration Executive Order, joined Georgetown University's law school. Yates serves as the law school’s "Distinguished Lecturer from Government."

Then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana James Boente has now been picked to become the new FBI general counsel, a foolish personnel decision that puts him in the position to continue to stonewall and obstruct the investigation of the conspiracy against President Trump.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who signed at least one of the FISA warrant applications, and thus swore under oath to the veracity of the information presented, is now the number two appointee at the Department of Justice. Rosenstein supervises the Mueller investigation that was put in motion after the firing of James Comey to investigate the allegations arising out of the tainted FISA warrants he swore out.

Then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr was reassigned and demoted but is still employed by the Department of Justice and is on track to retain his lucrative federal job and benefits.

FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who violated DOJ and FBI policy by conducting an extra-marital affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page is the author of the infamous “insurance policy” text message:

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s [Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe] office that there’s no way he [Trump] gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.

Strzok was the Chief of the Counterespionage Section during the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server. Strzok rose to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division and was the top FBI agent working on Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation before being reassigned to the Personnel Division when the substance of his texts with Page became public. He like Bruce Ohr, is still on the government payroll and on track to retain all of his retirement benefits.

Bill Priestap, then head of the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Division, is the person, according to the testimony of James Comey, who made the decision to keep the FBI's alleged “counterintelligence” operation against Trump and his associates secret, even from the heads of the Congressional Intel Committees who are supposed to be briefed on such matters. Priestap supervised FBI employees Peter Strzok and Bruce Ohr and reported up the chain of command to Comey, McCabe, Sally Yates and Obama-era Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Priestap approved the background documents used in FISA warrant preparation, gave approval for the use of the Steele dossier and was also directly involved in the surveillance and investigation of Michael Flynn.

Priestap seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth and may or may not be cooperating with the Department of Justice Inspector General or congressional investigators.

As the Senate historian recounted, in 1973, when the Watergate hearings exposed an unconstitutional domestic spying operation, lawmakers called for a congressional inquiry. The resulting “Church Committee” hearings led to the exposure of a wide range of intelligence abuses by federal agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Internal Revenue Service, and National Security Agency.

“Intelligence agencies have undermined the constitutional rights of citizens,” the Committee’s final report concluded, “primarily because checks and balances designed by the framers of the Constitution to assure accountability have not been applied.”

The final report included 96 recommendations, legislative and regulatory, designed “to place intelligence activities within the constitutional scheme for controlling government power.”

The committee also observed that “there is no inherent constitutional authority for the President or any intelligence agency to violate the law,” and recommended strengthening oversight of intelligence activities. In 1978 Congress approved and President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), requiring the executive branch to request warrants for wiretapping and surveillance purposes from a newly formed FISA Court.

Clearly, the FISA process only protects constitutional liberty if people who participate in it respect the Constitution as the law that governs government. If the Lois Lerner “no one is responsible” scenario is allowed to playout again in the Trump surveillance case, then the Deep State will win again.